Merck has characterized its cost-cutting initiative as more of a reallocation of resources to support other, higher-growth areas of its business.
Merck will let go about 6,000 employees, affecting around 8% of its global workforce as part of its recently announced cost-cutting initiative.
It is unclear whether the layoffs, reported by Fierce Pharma and Endpoints News on Thursday, will come with site closures.BioSpace has reached out to Merck for independent confirmation of the news.
These layoffs come just days after Merck announced a sweeping $3 billion cost-cutting push during its second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday. The savings generated, CEO Rob Davis told investors at the time, will be channeled into R&D and used to support the launch of up to 20 new products.
“We need to fully fund . . . those launches,” Davis said on the call, referring to both late-stage and commercialization activities for these pipeline assets. “But we want to do it productively and efficiently, and that’s why we’re looking to reallocate . . . resources from the slower growth areas of the business to fully fund into the fast-growing areas of our business.”
Merck had already foreshadowed staffing cuts on the earnings call—noting that roles across administrative, sales and R&D functions would be affected—but did not give a specific number.
Still, on the call Davis insisted that the savings push is more of a “reallocation” than an outright cut as Merck will potentially spend the saved $3 billion to grow other areas of its business, including making new hires as needed. The pharma has not specified how many new employees it plans on adding.
In the second quarter, Merck made $15.8 billion—a 2% dip from the same period in 2024. The HPV vaccine Gardasil took a heavy hit in Q2, slumping 55% year-on-year to bring in $1.1 billion. Keytruda, the cornerstone of Merck’s revenue, accounted for the bulk of its product sales with $7.956 billion, representing a 9% growth.
Merck follows in the footsteps of several other Big Pharma players that in recent weeks have enacted their own staffing cuts. Bristol Myers Squibb, for instance, let go of 68 employees from its Lawrenceville, New Jersey site, bringing its layoff count there to more than 1,200 since April 2024. Last week, Roche subsidiary Genentech also fired 87 employees from its headquarters in South San Francisco.
On Thursday—the same day Merck revealed its 6,000-person layoff—Moderna announced it was downsizing its global workforce by 10% and bringing headcount to below 5,000.
